Cabrera tightens AL West

Depends on your projection system, but there's a pretty good case that for $4 million the A's upgraded by as many as three wins over Bobby Crosby. Or, as little as a half-win.

Cabrera is more durable, plays better defense and is a better hitter, so it's obviously an improvement.

Projections are fairly consistent for both players, so if we just look at the median -- in this case, the CHONE forecasts -- we get Cabrera as nine runs better as a hitter. Last year, he was 14 runs better as a defender. And if he played 25 more games than Crosby, as CHONE forecasts, he'd be worth about five runs more than Crosby over a replacement shortsop. Add that all up and it's about 28 runs, or a tick below three wins. That would qualify as one of the best per-dollar moves of the offseason.

The Baseball Prospectus' forecasts meanwhile, are the outlier. PECOTA calls Crosby the better defender, but it's always hard to take BP's defensive metrics seriously, especially when they don't agree with other metrics. Regardless, based on BP's projection, Cabrera would be worth 1.7 wins above replacement in 2009, while Crosby would be worth 1.1 wins. If true, that would mean the A's paid a steep price for a half win.

So a lot hinges on whether Cabrera is one of the best shortstops or below average. It could be somewhere in the middle -- the Plus/Minus system puts him in the middle among shortstops. So it's probably prudent to estimate a 1.5- or 2-win improvement.

As for how it affects the AL West: The projections change with every signing, but PECOTA suggests the Angels are an 85-88 win team, and the A's about 82 before this move. CHONE had the Angels at 85 wins and the A's at 81 before this. So this deal won't quite make the AL West a hypothetical dead heat, but it likely puts the A's and Angels within each other's margin of error.

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